From The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
By Cynthia Tucker

On Sept. 20, 2001, President Bush delivered the speech of a lifetime, reassuring a stunned nation and promising swift and certain retribution.

“Whether we bring our enemies to justice, or bring justice to our enemies, justice will be done,” he declared in one of his more memorable turns of phrase.

I believed him. When he later announced the campaign to stamp out the Taliban, I applauded. Like most Americans, I desperately wanted to see a strong and competent president who would ferret out the terrorists, shut down their recruitment pipeline and restore our sense of security. I didn’t think any of that would be easy, but I thought Bush meant what he said.

He didn’t.

The incursion into Afghanistan — which started out well enough — was just the first of a series of half-hearted feints at doing the right thing, just the beginning of a long and disastrous season of public relations gimmicks designed to rally Americans around the flag and lay the groundwork for an imperial presidency. Bush had no intention of putting enough troops on the ground to rout the Taliban and catch Osama bin Laden; he didn’t plan to spend the money or make the commitment to rebuild Afghanistan; he didn’t have the vision or the patience required to resurrect a failed state.

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